A dangerous demonizing of Jews

Published 7:00 pm, Monday, November 7, 2011

To the Editor:

Faced with the refusal of the Palestinian leadership to negotiate directly with Israel, many of Israel's detractors are resorting to scapegoating Jewish settlers, portraying them as a threat to peace and to their Arab neighbors. In what amounts to a smear campaign, major news media literally invert the facts and reality, inflating episodes of settler misconduct while minimizing coverage of lethal Palestinian attacks.

Records kept by groups and agencies that monitor West Bank violence and casualties underscore how false is the pervasive narrative.

The pro-Palestinian advocacy group B'Tselem has kept a tally of fatal incidents in the West Bank, including the period of the second intifada. Since 2000, nine times more Jewish civilians -- 215 in all -- have been murdered by Palestinians in the West Bank than Palestinians murdered by Jewish settlers. Detailed accounts of each incident reveal that during these 11 years, out of the 46 Arabs killed by Jewish civilians in the West Bank, 23 were cases of self-defense against armed Palestinian assailants.

Thus, only 23 Palestinian Arabs have been killed by Jewish settlers in the West Bank in circumstances that could not clearly be proven to be self-defense, in contrast to the 215 Jewish civilians murdered -- some in their beds. And what is more disturbing, last month when a West Bank Jewish family including a 1-year-old and 5-year-old were stabbed to death in their sleep, the perpetrators were welcomed back as heroes.

Omission of these stark numbers contributes to the dangerous demonizing of Jews as the primary cause of violence when they are, actually, the main victim of it.